Page 1 of The Vigilant

Chapter One

Tynan

Iloved the smell of fresh paint as I stretched it over the canvas of the bike, the thin brush creating flecks so fine they were almost as invisible as a daffodil seed on the breeze. I wasn’t painting seeds but sparks. The dangerous, far-flung embers from the flame I’d painted on the back haunches of the classic Harley yesterday.

I wiped the brush and then picked up a fresh dab of paint to add more, listening as the soft caress of the brush on metal was the only thing that broke through the silence of the Sherwood Garage.

Wipe and dab.

Anymore, it was either the waning or the waking hours of the day when I preferred to get project work done. In the middle of the day, the massive garage was loud with the whir of power tools, the rumble of testing engines, and the cyclone of conversation between the rest of the guys.

Harmon Keyes, his brother, Darius, and Rhys Garrick.

All members of our former Special Forces unit, the Fifth Special Forces Group, Third Battalion. My brothers by fire.

Adjusting to normal life after war was war in and of itself. An everyday battle to keep my head above the memories of what we’d survived…and the memory of those who hadn’t. In many ways, we’d been lucky to be able to adjust together. Coming home from that last disastrous mission, we’d started the Sherwood Motorcycle Garage and buried ourselves in custom bike work. But it wasn’t enough.

I drew back my hand to wipe the brush once more, my gaze snagging on the two lines of numbers inked into the surface of my upper arm. Dog tag numbers. One for Ryan, the brother we’d lost. And the other for the mentor I couldn’t save. Jon.Each black probe of ink had felt like a microdot of memories forever buried into my flesh. Forever a reminder of what was lost.

Forever a reminder of what was owed.

Justice.

When you’ve seen how much evil there is in the world, it was impossible to unsee. To live like it didn’t exist.To pretend like we were okay doing nothing about it.

Especially when it hit close to home.

So, we started the Vigilantes Motorcycle Club. The four of us plus Harm and Dare’s adopted sister, Robyn—Rob, as she preferred to be called. What happened to her was the catalyst. The murder of her parents by a collection of criminals who concealed themselves in the world of corporate camouflage. We had the skills to pick up where the law had to leave off. To render justice outside the bounds of the system. And that became our new mission for the greater part of a decade now: to right the wrongs the law left unpunished.

The club and the garage were the collective focus of our brotherhood.Had been.Now, some priorities had changed. Harm had fallen in love with the daughter of one of our enemies. Then Rhys succumbed to his feelings for a woman who’d been wanted for murder. And most recently, Dare had realized hisheart still beat for his high school sweetheart, whom he’d rescued from a hitman.

Wipe and dab.This time, the flecks I painted were sharp and fast. A reflection of the turmoil starting inside me.

I’d never seen a weapon fell a man as quickly, efficiently, and completely as love.

Of course, I was happy for them. My brothers had found their way out of the purgatory I still lived in. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t why I kept my paint jobs to the hours I did. Their cyclone of conversation used to be about missions and projects and criminals and plans…but now it revolved around women and marriage and babies and…life.

I was too old for life—the oldest of all of us—and too damaged for love. Not that I’d ever leave the garage to find it or for it to have the chance to find me. No, the solitude I had here at Sherwood, buried in a small forest on the west coast of California, was enough. The company of my brothers when they were around was enough.

There comes a point when you’ve seen enough death that waking up every morningis enough.

I doused the brush in solvent and wiped it for the last time, collecting all my tools and calling it for the afternoon. There was a fresh piece of salmon I wanted to throw on the grill. Top it with some avocado and jalapeño, and a dab of chipotle mayo…my stomach rumbled at the thought.

I was the cook in the group. Something I’d picked up early on from my mentor, though when Jon made me cook it was for discipline. Now, that discipline had become a hobby, but anymore, I was usually only cooking for myself.

A groan threaded through my lips as I stood, my knees creaking from kneeling for so long. Thirty-nine wasn’t old by any standards, but after four tours in the Middle East, parts of mybody started to ache in ways that belonged to sixty-nine-year-olds, no matter how regimented my workout routine was.

My knees were the worst; they’d go stiff at the drop of a hat. After that, it was my left shoulder where I’d taken a bullet through my left trap and shattered my collarbone. And when that got sore, it pinched the nerves in my wrist and made my fingers lock up. Thank God I was right-handed, so it didn’t keep me out of commission for long. We all came back with a chessboard of injuries and scars, but as long as the psychological piece of surviving didn’t put us in checkmate, there wasn’t much else to do except continue to play the game.

I cleaned up my paints from the number three workspace around the deep-blue Harley. The black lines on the floor organized the ten-thousand-square-foot garage into an invisible tackle box of projects. A space for each bike. A number for each project. Sherwood wasn’t like most automotive garages where the floors were stained with oil and grime like blood spilled for power and speed. Here we kept everything clean. Pristine.I insisted we keep everything clean. I insisted on discipline.

With the paint put away and the floor wiped down, I left the bike to dry. Tomorrow, I’d put on the finishing touches, and it would be ready for pickup on Monday.

The door at the back of the garage opened to the hallway for the back rooms. Kitchen. Laundry. Rec room. And our security room—the office where I spent most of my day sorting and searching through information for Vigilante business.

I gave a glance down to the far end of the hall and listened. Dare was still here somewhere, grabbing the last of his things. While protecting his woman, Athena, a few months back, he’d found a way out of the guilt that weighed on him, and they’d fallen in love; I wasn’t surprised at all when he’d then decided to move in with her. In a couple of days, I’d be the last of usliving here on the garage compound. My very own tomb where I planned to be buried.

I let myself into the office and quietly shut the door behind me.

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